


The Transformation of Harry Potter (Which Draco Malfoy Had Absolutely Nothing to Do With, At All, So Stop Blaming Him Ron)

by megtopus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, animagus form, non-canon transformation, portrait snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megtopus/pseuds/megtopus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry achieves his animagus form only something gets all cocked up so he's stuck being snake-y and Draco just knows he's going to get blamed for this. There's some stuff about him being a weird snake creature and the use of a fairy tale trope as old as time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Transformation of Harry Potter (Which Draco Malfoy Had Absolutely Nothing to Do With, At All, So Stop Blaming Him Ron)

**Author's Note:**

> This whole thing was inspired by the idea of a snake in a sweater (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23jwUp3oiDE) and then I dunno, my brain is twisted or something, so I obviously went to Harry/Draco.
> 
> This is unbeta'ed (it's been so long since I wrote fic that I can't even find my old beta's email address) so all mistakes are mine and I apologize in advance.

When Harry finally achieved his animagus form (years after Voldemort’s defeat and his subsequent hermitude in the wizarding world, contrary to what everyone seemed to think) he was...alarmed, to say the least.

Draco looked equally shocked.

“Potter, I had no influence over this and I want to have it put on the record that I had NOTHING to do with it, which undoubtedly is what Weasley will accuse me of.”

Harry, incapable of speech, merely hissed a sibilant agreement.

Or maybe it wasn’t agreement.

Draco, after all, wasn’t the parseltongue in the relationship.

“Harry. Harry, turn back. I can’t speak snake.”

Still his lover didn’t return to his human form.

“Harry?”

Nothing.

Bollocks.

Draco picked up the red snake (a sort of mishmash of Gryffindor gold and scarlet stripes interspersed with black) and immediately it wound around Draco’s wrist, wriggling its way up his sleeve to twine around his arm.

“I guess there’s nothing for it, Harry,” Draco said, taking the floo powder of the mantel before he called on Headmistress McGonagall’s office.

\---

“Draco! What a surprise. How is your other half?”

“Well, funny you should ask. He’s…”

“What has he done now, Draco?”

“Harry achieved his animagus form, Minerva.”

“Wonderful!” McGonagall watched his face. “Or maybe not. What happened?”

With that, Draco moved his arm over the table between them and slowly Harry’s head peeked out from his cuff.

“He got stuck.”

\---

Severus was called up to Minerva’s office not long after.

“Yes, headmistress?” the portrait asked.

“Severus, Harry Potter is in trouble again.”

“Oh for Merlin’s sake. I did enough of this in my actual existence, Minerva. I refuse to deal with it in the golden years of my portraitured retirement.”

Just as he was about to leave the canvas and go back to the Slytherin common room Minerva spoke. “He’s a snake, Severus.”

There was a long pause, but Severus remained within the frame.

And then with a heavy sigh he said, “Of course he is.”

\---

“Now, non-mammalian transformations are very rare. Most of us want to stay with the familiar, but it requires a certain mind to become something else,” she said and the snake’s head popped up off the desk. “Reptiles and insects are among the most troublesome of forms.”

“Is it because they perceive in very different ways from their human forms?”

“Something like that, Draco,” Severus’s portrait intoned.

“But how do we get him back?”

“I recommend we begin with keeping Mr. Potter’s temperature up. When I transformed I was constantly cold. And when I was cold it made it harder for me to change back.”

“Right.”

\---

It wasn’t long before Draco had a terrarium set-up in a guest room at Hogwarts. The feeling of the castle’s magic around him was so familiar that he sometimes forgot about it and then had a wave of recognition and undeniable feeling of “HOME” wash over him again.

“Harry, you have to go into the tank. It’s got spelled hot rocks and everything! Snape says it will help you transform.”

Harry, however, in snake form, contracted his body around Draco’s arm again, clearly refusing to leave.

“Potter, we don’t have time for this! You need to come back to me.”

Reluctantly, the snake wound his way down Draco’s arm and onto the dirt in the terrarium, slithering his way under a large, hollowed log.

“Come back, Harry, please.”

\---

The next day there was another meeting convened, as in spite of warmth and food and Draco’s companionship, there was still a snake where there should have been one Harry Potter.

“Severus, the only option may be for you to transform yourself and converse.”

“Minerva, I’ve never transformed as a portrait. Can it be done?”

“You always were an over-achiever and you’re a Slytherin. If anyone can do it, it would be you.”

“Very well.” He made a grimace of a face and Draco watched him as slowly the being in the painting transformed into a stunning european viper.

There was an angry sibilant hiss coming from the portrait and Harry raised his head up several inches from the table, turning his head around to see what was making the noise.

Draco lifted him off the table and carried him to the portrait so they could converse more easily. Harry even got bold enough to flicker his tongue against the surface of the painting, at which point the adder reared back and opened its mouth in a pre-strike maneuver.

The snake in Draco’s hands shrunk in on itself and deflated.

The adder in the portrait seemed to settle its scales again (in the way that only an animagus could seem to settle its scales) and made a soothing sort of hiss sound.

The little coral snake poked its head up again, curious, and then the two of them seemed to shift and bob together in a sort of snake dance.

Finally, portrait Snape rippled and returned to a human form.

“Well, I have discerned Mr. Potter’s problem.”

“Yes, Severus?”

“Draco, your partner isn’t an animagus.”

“What?!” Draco spluttered.

“He’s a naga.”

“Oh dear,” was the only reply Minerva gave.

\---

“ ‘Nagas are unlike animagi in that a naga is an actual incarnation of a snake, not merely a wizard in animal form. Much like the selkies of the British Isles, and the chosen disciples Inari Okami of Japan, a naga is connected in a deep way to their animal instincts and form making learning to transform back at first very difficult.’ Only you, Harry.”

The naga on the desk, meanwhile, was enjoying a charmed rock and looking sleepily at Draco. Earlier in the day Severus mentioned that the rock wasn’t quite enough to keep out the drafts and chills of a Scottish winter, so a tiny Slytherin colored jumper had been conjured for him. Though no one would get him to admit it, Draco thought a snake in a sweater was probably the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

“This does seem to be a typical sort of Potter thing to do,” Severus added from the portrait. “What does it say about helping them remember their wizard forms?”

“Nothing here so far,” Draco replied, scanning the next several pages. “Ah! Got something! Frequently nagas, like many other true shapeshifters, can be recalled to their form with kisses. This is reflected in the many myths of individuals trapped in other forms changing with a kiss (see: frog prince/princess legends).”

Severus, Minerva, and Draco all looked at the now officially sleeping naga.

“You’re kidding me.” Draco was the first one to regain his wits after that pronouncement.

“What does the rest of the text say, Draco?”

“ ‘To revive a shapeshifter, someone close to them (though not necessarily romantically involved) must kiss the shapeshifter. Effects may be immediate or take several hours. If this does not work, there are rare reports of some being stuck in their alternate form for years, if not decades. For more information see “The Plight of a Trapped Shapeshifter” by Filidirge Macintosh’ “

Minerva shifted back in her chair behind the desk.

“Well, Draco, it seems like this would be a job you’d be better at. Let us hope it works.”

Draco picked the snake up from the table, mindful of Harry’s new jumper, and put him at eye level.

The snake eyed him, wary of the large human’s face so close.

“I love you, Harry,” Draco whispered so quietly neither Minerva nor Severus could hear him. With that, he placed a small peck on the blunt end of the snake’s nose.

It was hard to tell for any of the occupants of the room whether the following event took several minutes or if it took just a few seconds. First Harry lifted out of Draco’s palms, then the snake sprouted arms and legs, the torso shortened, the head became humanoid. For a time, as the human form reemerged, the snake’s skin remained--the gold and red scales divided by thin black bands--and then slowly reabsorbed into the smooth skin they’d known Harry with before.

And then, after forever or no time at all (again, no one could be sure), Harry stood in front of them.

“What’d I miss, Draco?” he asked with a sleepy blink. “Oh, Minerva. Severus, ‘lo. What are you doing here?”

“Potter, you’re at Hogwarts.” Severus had an amused tone to his snark, however, and just a hint of fondness in his gaze.

“What am I at Hogwarts?” Harry was genuinely stunned, looking around.

“Potter, you are never going to live it down when I tell Weasley that I had to kiss you to turn you back from a snake.”

“What?!”

\---

The next time he transformed he spent the day curled around Draco’s neck wearing his tiny Slytherin jumper.

“You’d make a wonderful house mascot, Harry. Are you sure you don’t want to apply for the job?”

He felt a tiny puff of breath against his face (which he dared assume was a little snake puff of laughter) right before Harry nose-butted him.

Draco paused, thinking, and then said, “With our luck, if I achieve my form what do you want to bet I’m a lion?”


End file.
